Macau and Porto cooperate and exchange experience in arranging and conducting large events

Rui Moreira, Mayor of Porto, attended the Macau Grand Prix this past weekend at the invitation of the Government of Macau. The main purpose was to understand how a GP is organised in a city centre so that citizens may feel as little the negative impact of such an event as possible, namely regarding mobility outside the perimeter and safety.

Alexis Tam, Government official in charge of Culture and Social affairs, accompanied the Mayor of Porto to the event.

"The relevance of this visit was continuing the work we have been developing in this part of the world, especially with the South of China. We were in Shenzhen and now here in Macau to pursue not only the cultural exchanges but also at business level, which we started five years ago with Secretary Alexis Tam", explained Rui Moreira.

"This time, we were also able to better understand this giant task of setting up a GP, which amount to over 20 million euros. We have not had the possibility to assembly a GP in Porto, but we will host the Rally de Portugal in 2020, which qualifies for the WRC programme, and it is somewhat similar to the GP in terms of safety, promotion and management of the city. This is why this learning was very important", concluded Rui Moreira, Mayor of Porto, twinned since 1991 with Macau.

The Macau Grand Prix was first held in 1954, as a sports car event. The title race became an open-wheel Formula event In 1961. Macau GP received world championship status from 2005 to 2014 as the final round of the World Touring Car Championship. In 1976, the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix was introduced. In 2008, a GT3 race was added to the event, which became known as the FIA GT World Cup.

The Mayor of Porto also visited the 21st China Hi-Tech Fair and gave a comprehensive interview to Radio Macau.